The NTU Department Of Social Sciences
The staging ground at the Department of Social Sciences at National Taiwan University’s Xuzhou campus was organized to give occupiers a space to meet outside of the premises of the Legislative Yuan itself and served as an important staging ground for the attempted occupation of the Executive Yuan
The staging ground at the Department of Social Sciences (社科院) at National Taiwan University’s (國立臺灣大學) Xuzhou (徐州) campus was organized by National Taiwan University students to give occupiers at the Legislative Yuan a space to meet outside of the premises of the Legislative Yuan itself. Although the core members of the occupation ended up usually holding meetings outside the Legislative Yuan at NGO offices, use of the site was obtained by requesting use of the space in the Department of Social Science on NTU’s Xuzhou campus. As such, the space was used as a meeting space or sometimes a space to rest, and was primarily managed by National Taiwan University students. News was played 24/7 in the space and a SMS messaging system was set up so members could quickly communicate. This was termed a “back-up base” for the occupation, but the Department of Social Sciences group would eventually take its own course in the movement.
The Department of Social Sciences group was among the central planners of the attempted occupation of the Executive Yuan, an action which was organized out of anger against lack of responses from the Ma administration. The participants in the initial charge gathered first at the Department of Sociology before they divided into three teams to charge the Executive Yuan, with anyone who had a student ID allowed to participate.
The original target for the Executive Yuan occupation, however, was originally an attempt to clear police out of the entirety of the Legislative Yuan in order to occupy the building as a whole and not just the general assembly chambers. The Department of Social Sciences group wished to establish a direct connection between the inside of the occupation within the Legislative Yuan and the occupation encampment outside of the Legislative Yuan, citing that there was a need for direct communication and that viewpoints within the Legislative Yuan and outside it were different. Those within the Legislative Yuan did not originally wish that people be able to enter and leave the Department of Social Sciences freely, seeing as this could lead to uncontrollable chaos.
But given the inability to occupy the Legislative Yuan, the target was changed to the Executive Yuan. In the aftermath of the failed occupation of the Executive Yuan, with the view that the site had been compromised, the Department of Social Sciences site was shut down on 327.